Re: "git gc" doesn't seem to remove loose objects any more

[Johan Herland <johan@herland.net>]

On Monday 15 December 2008, Mark Brown wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 10:56:10AM -0500, Theodore Tso wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 03:08:34PM +0100, Bj?rn Steinbrink wrote:
> > > To clarify that a bit more: git gc keeps unreachable objects
> > > unpacked, so that git prune can drop them. And git gc invokes git
> > > prune so that only unreachable objects older than 2 weeks are
> > > dropped.
> >
> > To be even more explicit, "git gc" will **unpack** objects that
> > have become unreachable and were currently in packs.  As a result,
> > the amount of disk space used by a git repository can actually go
> > **up** dramatically after a "git gc" operation, which could be
> > surprising for someone who is running close to full on their
> > filesystem, deletes a number of branches from a tracking
> > repository, and then does a "git gc" may get a very unpleasant
> > surprise.
>
> It can also cause things like the "please repack" warning in git gui
> to go off.  This is especially unhelpful since they tend to tell you
> to go and do a gc to resolve the problem.

Instead of exploding all unreachable objects into loose objects, does it 
make sense to repack them into a separate pack? AFAICS, that would 
solve both the disk usage problem and the git-gui-"please repack" 
problem. Also, it might make git-prune's job much easier, since 
unreachable objects are now located in a single pack only?


Have fun!

...Johan

-- 
Johan Herland, <johan@herland.net>
www.herland.net